The Great Chase
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: Phoebe finds a recipe for what she thinks is a magic potion. When one of her friends seems to have turned into a cat after eating it, she enlists Gerald and Arnold in trying to catch the cat no matter where it leads them.
1. Chapter 1

**The Great Chase (formerly Arnold goes to the library) began with the idea for a library trip. But since then I've been reinventing it. To be fair, someone else on this Fanfiction site came up with idea of turning Helga into a cat. They have Helga make a wish on a wishing well, then Arnold has to adopt her. In that story, she is a white cat instead of yellow. That story has merit, but to be different, this story is about Phoebe and not Arnold. I also made Helga a yellow cat, not a white one. If anyone wants to check out the original inspiration for the cat spin in this tale, please check it out under my favorites list. Thanks.**

Arnold and Gerald went to the library. A not so tranquil day began with this humble fact. Going to the library was not an event to shake the centuries, but it could be baffling if you lived in Hillwood. There were quite a few eccentrics there.

The head librarian was probably responsible for the occult section which both Helga and Sid had wandered into on two separate occasions. The old book, "How to Tell is Your Friend is a Vampire" was still there, as was the book on magical diseases. There were odd objects on her desk like bats and the head librarian herself wore striped socks and pointed shoes and hat that gave Gerald the jeebies.

Thankfully, there were other more modern sections. Like the geography section. Arnold lead them to it and pulled a book down. Gerald followed suit. Arnold flopped his book down on a table and pointed to a page.

"See? I told ya Gerald! There's the map we need! Now we just gotta copy it out, then write a paragraph about it, and our homework's done!"

"Yeah! This is gonna be a breeze!" Gerald said with joy. Both he and Arnold pulled chairs up next to the table and sat down in them. Soon, two yellow pencils were scribbling away.

Arnold finished writing his paragraph first. But a little dissatisfied, he stood up and strolled to a bookshelf to find another book. Arnold yanked it away, then poked his head around the end of the aisle to see the other patrons. A man in a purple top hat was reading Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. Rex Smith Higgins the III was reading Oliver Twist. Arnold's Grandma was reading Treasure Island while wearing her pirate costume with the fake eyepatch and pegleg.

Arnold pulled his head back round the bookshelf. Gerald was just finishing his page. He threw down his pencil in exultation.

"There!" Gerald said spreading his finger out above the finished page. "Behold the finest masterpiece that ever a fifth grader has crafted! I'll get an A for sure!"

"Um-hum," said Arnold as he cracked open his second book for himself. He added a few more lines to the paragraph he had already started. Then he lifted up the paper to his eye for one last read.

"Well, I guess that will do! Let's go, Gerald!"

"Yeah! Maybe if we hurry we can catch the promo for the Bad Breath Boys, Part 7!" Gerald declared with joy. He did like his action movies.

Arnold and Gerald hurried to the door. When they were nearly to the exit, they heard a startled squeal. It was Phoebe Heyerdahl. She had collided with another girl by the door. A good number of books lay strewn all around the two girls.

"Oh! I'm sorry, miss!" A girl about Phoebe's age said. She picked up a book, then read the cover. "Optical Eyewear Fashion Now? This one must be yours!" the slender, freckled brunette said. She handed a tattered paperback to Phoebe.

"Belching with Poltergeists? Oh, I'm sorry this one must be yours!" Phoebe said handing the stranger a heavy, hardcover tome. Both girls hunched over the ground on their knees to gather books. With a little sorting, everything that had been dropped before was lifted off the ground.

"Sorry about that!" repeated the brunnette.

"Oh! Don't worry about it!" Phoebe flustered. Gerald and Arnold made their way to their friend.

"Phoebe, babe, are you okay?" Gerald asked. Phoebe blinked behind her heavy frames.

"Yeah, I'm okay! Thanks for asking! But what are you two doing here?" Phoebe pondered before coming to a conclusion. "Are you here to do your geography homework, too?"

"Yeah, well, we're done with it now!" Gerald announced. "Do you wanna come along with us? We're headed back to Vine Street!"

"Sure!" Phoebe muttered. "I was just on my way out myself!" Gerald held open the heavy library door.

"Hm, hum, huh! You sure are carrying a lot of books with ya!"

"A little light reading," Phoebe said demurely. "It helps me sleep if I read before bedtime!"

"I'll bet!" said Gerald borrowing one of Phoebe's books from the top of its stack to read the cover.

"Traditional names for Sheep? Sounds boring to me! But let me be a gentleman and carry some of those books for you!"

"Why, thank you Gerald!" Phoebe said fluttering her lashes. She split her stack of books in two and handed off half of them to Gerald. But she started at the sight of slim blue book. She set her books gently on the ground to free her hands to examine the slim blue book in detail.

"This one isn't mine! It must belong to that other girl!"

"So return it to the library!" Arnold suggested. "I'm certain that if she wants to, she'll be able to check it out again." Arnold had given a very reasonable piece of advice. But Gerald glanced behind them. Then ahead.

"Nah! Look! We're almost to the bus stop! And there's the bus coming right now! Let's return it another time."

"Alright," Phoebe said climbing aboard the bus. Arnold paid the fare for all three of them. The bus jerked to a start and a stop. They all disembarked on Vine Street.

"Do you want help carrying all this home?" Gerald said with a flirtatious, slanted eyebrow.

"No, I...oh, look at this!" said Phoebe. She had spotted a bookmark at the top of the blue book. She set her books down on the park bench near Green's Meats to take the bookmark out of its place. She read it slowly.

"How… odd!" Phoebe said. "It's a recipe for…cat potion."

"Hm. Sounds mystical and mysterious to me!" Gerald commented. "Maybe it's one of ol' Madame Malkin's brews?" But Arnold rolled his eyes backwards, then huffed.

"I don't believe it. Things like that are all nonsense. I wouldn't pay any attention to it "

"Or conversely," Phoebe said while scratching her chin. "The best way to disprove a hypothesis is to try it out in order to see it fail."

"Sounds like a waste of time to me!" Gerald griped. He and Phoebe continued walking down the street behind Arnold's backyard. But Arnold stopped by his backyard fence. Abner was squealing with joy to see him. The pig left his doghouse to sniff Arnold's leg.

"Hm, well if you guys are going ahead, I'm gonna just go home!" Arnold announced as he scratched Abner's ears. With hooded, slightly annoyed, lowered eyelids, he gestured towards his home behind him.

"Sure thing, man!" Gerald grinned with a wink. But he followed Phoebe all the way to her front door. When her library books were safely inside her house, he knelt to kiss Phoebe's tiny, slender hand.

"Good night, mademoiselle!" Gerald cooed. Phoebe giggled.

"Oh! Goodnight…. Gerald!" The girl fluttered her lashes a tiny bit before she closed the door.

After the door had snapped shut, Phoebe turned to her great, big pile of books. The bookmark inside the blue book had caught her curiosity again, and she turned to it to read the words out loud.

"Fiber powder, sardine oil, and a sprig of catmint? Hm," Phoebe said tucking her hand under her chin. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine. What did a cat potion do? Did it make cats multiply from other cats as fast as popcorn pops? Did it make cats talk? Did it make one sprout cat ears, whiskers, and a tail? Phoebe examined herself in the mirror.

"Nah!" she said to all her absurd imaginings. But mere minutes later, she was in the bathroom digging out a large bottle.

"Ah-ha! Fiber powder!" Phoebe said with victory. "Now for some sardine oil!" She snuck into the parent's kitchen, set up a ladder, and climbed its rungs. Then she snuck out of the kitchen again with it. Her father wandered into the kitchen, then opened the cupboard to look for something.

"Dear? Have you seen where my anchovies went?" he asked his wife, Reba.

But Phoebe had purloined her father's anchovies successfully and now, all she needed was a sprig of catmint. So she found a gardening book and compared the pictures with the backyard all around her.

"Catmint! I've found it!" Phoebe said as she found it. With enthusiasm, she plucked a sprig. Then she fled back to her room. She donned a science lab coat and goggles.

"This is it! This experiment will prove or disprove the frankly… unlikely supernatural," Phoebe said calming down from earlier. She blended all the ingredients together in a used peanut butter jar. Then she stared at her creation.

"Hm," Phoebe wondered. "How shall I test it?" Phoebe pushed opened her bedroom door and walked all the way down to the kitchen. Once there she set the jar down on the kitchen counter to think. She took out a bread knife, scooped out some of the mix on its edge, then sniffed it. It was then that she heard the doorbell ring.

"Phoebe, honey!" her mother Reba called up the staircase to her room. "Your friend Helga's here to see you!" Phoebe blinked in surprise. In the hallway, Phoebe's mom was talking to Helga.

"I was just about to go shopping, you see!" she explained. A large, colorful tote hung on her elbow. "But make yourself comfortable while Phoebe comes down!"

"I'm right here, mother!" Phoebe said exiting the kitchen. For the moment she had forgotten all about cat potions. "Helga what are you doing here?"

"Ah, just seeing if you wanted to do something. There's still lots of daylight, left ya know."

"Aw, but Helga!" Phoebe protested. "Actually, I still have a small...task left."

"You mean your homework? Pfft! I finished mine ages ago," said Helga swooping a hand down at her friend as she jaunted her hip. She then turned away to look in a tasteful, trendy, decorative mirror. With her finger curled to her lower teeth and her lip raised slightly to accomodate, she paused to look at her teeth. Then she turned back toward Phoebe.

"Look Phoebes, don't overstress it. It isn't one of your five pages papers plus bibliography and index. It's a simple assignment! Scribble a map down, whether or or not it's accurate, blab a bit about what kinds of things the country is known for, like daffodils or something, then bam! You're done. It's as easy as that! By the way, did I leave some of my comic books here?"

"You did!" Phoebe reflected. "Hold on one minute! I shall go retrieve them!" With a merry, dutiful hop, Phoebe walked upstairs to fetch a small stack of brightly colored comic books. Helga flipped through the stack.

"Yup, that's them!" Helga approved.

"Oh, well," Phoebe fidgeted with hope. "Since you're here, maybe we could do our homework together?"

"Nah, like I said, I'm done doing homework for today. So if you're busy, I'll just call you later! See you around Phoebes!" Helga uttered. She trotted out the door, lifting her hand in a friendly wave.

Phoebe blinked. Helga had come and gone like a hit and run. But she was used to that by now. The girl came then vanished with mysterious frequency. Especially if she was in the mood to bother Arnold. Phoebe stood still and silent and she forced her thoughts to recall just what she had been doing. What had she been doing?

"Oh, of course!" Phoebe blurted out loud. "The cat potion! I've got to see if it works!" Phoebe said with sudden passion. She darted back to the counter. She jolted from her head to toes when her eyes landed on the open jar but also a bit of sandwich bread lain next to it on the counter. Across the surface of the bread, the grimy goo that was Phoebe's "cat potion" had been liberally spread. A large bite had been taken out of the bread's corner. Phoebe lifted up the piece of bread and gasped.

"Oh, no! Helga! She must have mistaken the cat potion for some kind of butter! How terrible! I hope she's alright!" Phoebe flustered and fretted for a moment. Then she darted out of her house. Maybe Helga hadn't gone too far? She panted.

"Get it together Phoebe! The worst thing that could happen to Helga is that she'll get a bit of tummy ache! That or maybe she'll have better bowel movements. Dietary fiber isn't bad for you!" Phoebe reasoned with herself. But then she stared ahead of her and gasped. There on the sidewalk was a half open comic book- one of those Phoebe had returned to Helga. Phoebe didn't suspect that maybe Helga had dropped it. All she noted was that the paper wriggled and rattled. Then a yellow kitten with a pink ribbon tied around its neck popped its head out from beneath the rustling pages.

"Mew!" the cat said with a bold, happy purr. Phoebe stooped over to pick up the cat. She was horrified and convinced.

"Oh no, the cat potion! It must have transformed Helga into a cat!" Phoebe said sniffling. "Don't worry Helga! I'll take you home with me! I'll feed you and take care of you until I find a way to reverse this transformation even if it takes me my whole life!" Phoebe ranted with determination. "It's only too bad I'm allergic to cats! Achoo!"

"Me-owl!" the kitten protested at Phoebe's sneeze. It shoved its back foot against Phoebe's chest and spun out of her grasp. It then took off down the sidewalk.

"Oh, no! Helga!" Phoebe gasped with a hand outstretched. She took off after the cat as fast as her tiny feet would allow.


	2. Chapter 2

**A small installment to clear things up. Helga really isn't a cat! But thanks for reviewing, everyone. Appreciate.**

Helga really wasn't transformed into a cat. Instead, she had walked home with her bundle of comics. She sauntered into the living room of her house and propped her feet up to read. A fire wasn't going in their historic home fireplace, but there wasn't a need for one. It wasn't winter.

Yet it wasn't too hot to be outside, either. The weather was comfortable, so after a while, Helga left her comic books draping across the arm of a recliner, on its seat, and rumpled on the floor. It could be that Miriam would clean them if she woke up, but it didn't matter. Helga had decided to go out and like a cat, when she wanted to go out, she went out.

"Miriam! I'm going out for a while!" Helga called out to her mother who was drearily sitting half-way up in the kitchen.

"Hm? Alright, dear!" she murmured out. "I'll have dinner ready! Eventually." Helga noted then that she had been in the process of making some bizarre dish. She was stirring unpeeled turnips and oatmeal together.

"Um, Mom? You do realize that's oatmeal, don't you?" Helga said quipping her brow. Miriam turned the box around to look at the label.

"Oh yeah! How did that happen?!" she asked herself as Helga swiftly swapped the boxes in her hand.

"Never mind, I'm going out!" Helga said.

"Okay! Have a good time, dear!" her mother said as Helga stomped out the door.

"Looks like take-out night!" Helga muttered to herself as walked swiftly down her stoop.

Elsewhere in Hillwood, Phoebe Heyerdahl was sprinting after a cat ahead of her. The cat had no ill intentions, but it did not like being followed by a stranger so it kept dodging behind trashcans and just about any object on the street. Phoebe rammed her shins into quite a few things for her trouble.

"Helga, wait!" she uttered. But the cat would not wait. Instead, it climbed up a tall wooden fence, balanced on top of it, then used the perch to hop onto a building roof. It lashed its tail at Phoebe.

"MEW!" the young cat complained as it disappeared onto the roof line. Phoebe felt the obligation to follow. So she climbed up to the roof line. On top of the fire escape, her eyes met with those of the elusive feline. But it catapulted itself along the nearby rooftops like a ninja.

"Oh, dear!" fretted Phoebe. "I can't possibly hope to catch it! I mean her! So the only chance I have now of saving Helga is to trap her!"

Before too long, Phoebe had come back to the alley with a box and some sardines. She set up the box with a stick below it to prop it up. Before long, the cute little golden yellow cat appeared, It sat down on the pavement before Phoebe and mewed cutely.

"Mew!" the kitten called.

"Aw! Come here little sweetie!" Phoebe encouraged. She wiggled her fingers, hoping for it to get nearer. The cat licked its paws. Then it sauntered over toward the box trap.

"Mew!" the cat called again. It sniffed the sardines.

"Mew!" the cat called. A moment later, Phoebe's trap snapped down to the ground. She clasped her hands together with joy.

"Oh, yes!" Phoebe skipped. Cautiously, she lifted up the box trap, eager to catch the yellow kitten round the middle. But instead of a small kitten, an enormous scarred, one-eyed, tom cat was in the box. It was so huge it was difficult to understand how it had fit the small box Phoebe had used for her trap.

"Growl!" the tom-cat spat at Phoebe.

"Eiii!" Phoebe squealed. She sat on the box's top as the demon inside tried to catch her with its claws. A short time, later, Phoebe poked her head out of a trash barrel. Alley cats were hissing all around her so she tiptoed away. "Whew!" the girl said at last. A tiny white kitten mewed next to her. She screamed.

"Argh! No wait a minute. It's okay! Hello little fella? Do you wanna be my friend?"

"Mew!" the new kitten said.

"Great!" said Phoebe petting this new cat. A back door to a shop opened.

"Mr. Mittens?" an elderly woman said. "Oh there you are! Naughty thing, escaping! Come back inside the shop! Naughty," the woman said. She tickled the kitten under its chin. "Oh! And how about you young, lady? What are you doing here?"

"Um, I've kind of lost my cat. Ma'am!" Phoebe said. After all, her parents had taught her to always be polite.

"Oh! That's sad!" the lady said. "And what does he look like?"

"Well, she's small and yellow, and goes by the name Helga. Ma'am," Phoebe explained miserably. "Oh and she has a pink bowtie!"

"Well," the shopkeeper thought. "If I were you, I'd put up fliers! Maybe someone in the neighborhood has seen your cat!"

"Posters?" Phoebe repeated with reverent awe. "Of course!"

It took a little while, but in short time, Phoebe had printed out posters and rounded up a few of her classmates. Sid looked down at the flyers in his hand.

"You're kidding right?" said the boy staring down at the missing pet poster in his hand. It read, "transmogrified girl lost! Before and after pictures!" There was a yellow cat sketched next to a stick Helga.

"Just get going!" Phoebe snapped. She pointed her finger at Sid's nose, reminiscent somewhat of her best friend. Sid shrugged his shoulders and Stinky and Sid walked away.

"Turned into a cat? Gawsh," Stinky Peterson offered as comment. "Well, at least she'll miss tomorrow's test! Maybe I should turn into a cat, too!"

Phoebe walked around town asking all the neighbors if they had seen a yellow kitten with a pink bowtie. But all of the shopkeepers on Vine Street shook their head no. Arnold's grandpa scratched his head for while, but then he, too, shook his head a sad no. Phoebe even went so far as to ask Monkeyman as he stood on the sidewalk in broad daylight in one of his saner moments. But even he shook his head no. A disheartened Phoebe slumped down on and abandoned crate. A tear leaked down her face.

"Phoebe?" Arnold asked like magic as he peeked around a fence. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, are you okay, beautiful?" the soft and compassionate voice of Gerald mumbled, too. The two boys strolled up to Phoebe to stand on either side of her. Gerald placed a hand on Phoebe's shoulder as Arnold crossed his arms.

"Oh, Gerald!" Phoebe cried. "I've gone and done it! You know that recipe from the library that I found? Well, I tried it and now it's turned Helga into a cat! I've lost my best friend and it's all my fault!" Gerald and Arnold looked at each other with a little bit of disbelief.

"Ah, Phoebe, beautiful!" Gerald repeated for the girl to hear. "There is NO WAY Helga turned into a cat! But if she did, well, we'll help you get her back! We promise!"

"Really?" Phoebe sniffed with hope.

"Gerald's right!" Arnold said with a slim smile. "We'll find her! Now where did the cat you lost go?"

"She's… well, she's… right there!" Phoebe gasped and pointed. The yellow kitten with the pink ribbon was back. Teasingly, it sat on the roadway a few car lengths away.

"MEW!" it called out with delight. Then it got up off its tail, turned about and began to trot away.

"After her! Please, Gerald!" Phoebe pleaded as she clutched at Gerald's shirt front.

"I'm on it!" the boy uttered. He lowered his eyebrows to mean business. It was a quest now.


	3. Chapter 3

Arnold and Gerald scurried after the cat. It did not matter much if Phoebe's story of this cat being Helga was unbelievable or not. For their friend's sake, they would catch it. But even a kitten could be a much faster runner than two young boys.

The kitten sprinted down the street. Gerald and Arnold harried after it, but soon the kitten was lost to their sight. Arnold grabbed hold of Gerald's forearm and pulled it in his direction to get his friend's attention.

"Gerald! My room! I've got to get something!" Arnold blurted out. The two scampered up his fire escape, then up into his room. Arnold retrieved a pair of binoculars from his room and handed them up to Gerald. With one foot firmly placed higher than the other, Gerald scanned across the cityscape below, scouting for any sign of a yellow kitten. He focused the binoculars by turning tiny wheel on the nose bridge. The cityscape of Hillwood was perhaps an acquired taste, but in its own way it was unique and beautiful, even in an intense and anxious moment. Mighty Pete the fort-house tree and the water tower on top of Arnold's House were a soothing portion of nature interlaced with less soothing evidence of human industry. There was a good deal of graffiti and overflowing trash cans down on the streets.

"There!" Gerald declared with glee. There was a yellow kitten sniffing crates on the back loading dock of Green's Meats. They hurried after it.

"There he is! Or she," Gerald corrected himself, in case the cat really was Helga. Arnold and Gerald arrived at the loading dock with a bowl full of dry kibble in hand. Arnold and Gerald smiled their widest grins, hoping the cat would find them friendly. But it stared at them wide-eyed instead. It looked behind itself, back at the boys, then behind itself again. With one last stare at the boys, it came to a firm decision.

"MEW!" the cat cried out loud as Mr. Green cracked open a door leading out onto his loading dock. A cat went hurdling through the butcher's legs, causing the balding man to collapse onto the cement on his rear. He massaged his head, then looked at all rubbish now strewn around him from an upended, green garbage bag.

"Sorry, Mr. Green!" Arnold yelled to Mr. Green as he jogged past. He and Gerald scooted inside the shop's rear door. Arnold tapped Gerald's shoulder when he spotted the yellow kitten standing on top of a large display of metal tuna cans.

"MEW!" the cat said with glee as it hurtled through a hole between cans. It somehow reappeared at the stack's top. It batted one of the cans down with its paw. The can made a merry clanking sound as it rolled on the ground.

"Stop that!" Arnold said crossly. But that cat started whapping tuna cans off the shelf like they were hockey pucks. Sweating, Arnold and Gerald caught as many as they could.

"Did it stop?!" Gerald asked his friend. They both stared ahead. Somehow the cat had gotten out of the store and now watched them inside the shop from outside the shop window.

"How did it?" Arnold wondered. But then they saw that some of Mr. Green's other customers stood by the half-open front door. They scooted outside of it themselves, to tail the cat once again.

"Me-Row!" the cat pranced with glee all the way to the fish market. After miring Arnold and Gerald (temporarily) in an unexpected patch of freshly poured cement, it ducked into the piles of wooden crates packed with stinking fish and fresh, air-chilling ice. Arnold and Gerald searched all around them.

"It has to be around here somewhere!" Gerald complained. Then he spotted it. Tapping Arnold on the shoulder with a finger, Gerald pointed. A really large fish complete with head had begun to walk across the floor on tiny yellow feet. The two boys tried to sneak up on this possible zombie creature. Just as they nearest the mysteriously alive fish, the cat's nose head and whiskers poked out of the fish's mouth. Then, in one swift leap, it left its fish costume behind.

"Mew!" the kitten complained as it leapt. Arnold and Gerald knocked heads as they leapt after it. The cat then jumped up onto a counter and sat down to examine them thoroughly.

Silent, Arnold and Gerald stared at one another with rage. Both boys nodded an angry agreement. Lifting themselves up to their feet, they both crept to either side of the cat to flank it. But the kitten did not move. It watched with patient, innocent-seeming fascination as the boys got nearer. It waited until they both began to sprint. Then it tipped a bucketful of ice on floor with its nose. The cat almost smiled as Arnold fell into a life-sized replica of a full-grown salmon so that his head popped out of the poster print. He did not have time to be embarrassed however, for Gerald slid into him. Within moments, both boys upended in a small water tank full of thankfully banded lobsters. Gerald came out of the water with two lobsters clung to his very tall hair.

"That does it," complained Gerald. "I'm calling the dogcatcher!"

"Gerald!" Arnold complained back with sudden fervor. "What if… you know it really is Helga?"

"I thought you didn't believe in all that nonsense?" Gerald recalled with a frown as he shook his shoes to get the water out. Arnold was ringing out his favorite blue hat. He slapped it back on his head even if there was seaweed dangling in his hair.

"Well, no, not before… but…. Only Helga gives me this much trouble! So it might be her!" Arnold speculated. He looked down the road with a fretful expression.

"Well, if that cat really is Helga," Gerald stated slowly as he thought deeply. "Then… I know!" the boy said snapping his fingers with a click. "We'll bait her with things Helga would like!"

"You mean comic books and junk food?" Arnold asked in a woolen voice. As far as he knew, Helga's tastes weren't especially refined.

"Exactly, my brother!" said Gerald pulling Arnold's arm. "Let's go!" The two boys darted off to search of things for their trap.

But what the kids neglected to note as they bolted past Slaussen's Ice Cream Store was that Helga was coming out of the storefront with a cherry-flavored popsicle in one hand. With her little bit of red at her waist and her pink dress and bow elsewhere, Helga perfectly matched the billboard for strawberry-ripple icecream posted behind her. She was so perfectly camouflaged that the two boys practically stepped on her feet without noticing her. Her eyes followed after Arnold and Gerald's full-force vault. Helga was curious, but she had a popsicle to eat. She shrugged and gave her dessert a messy slurp.

Soon, Arnold and Gerald returned to an alleyway near Arnold's house with two large armfuls of assorted things. There was a whole bag of cheese puffs, a bag of potato chips, three candy bars, and as many comic books they could carry. They threw in some sports gear as a bonus.

"There we go!" Gerald declared with pride at his great cleverness. "Alien Kangaroos vrs. Goldenrod Wombat, volumes 2 through 14! Grilled Cheese Man Sees Sparks! That ought to lure her here!" But Arnold reached down into the pile of bait to find an extra adorable, sparkling, miniature-princess alligator doll. It squeaked adorably in his hand.

"Gerald? What's this?" he questioned as he eyed the horrifying bit of modern merchandise.

"Oh, that's a mistake!" Gerald shrugged with weak grin. "I actually bought that for Tim'!" With a stoic blink, Arnold tucked the offending toy into his pocket.

"So what do we do now?" Arnold asked Gerald.

"Now we just drape this fishnet up over the alley!" Gerald explained. "Then we drop it!" the boy said making a wide gesture with his arms.

"Right," Arnold said with a bit of skepticism.

Elsewhere, however, Helga was licking her popsicle as she strolled down the street. Her eyes grew big and wide after she had turned her head slightly to the left. There in her bedroom window, Lila Sawyer had been dancing in her room with a pair of fluffy white cat-ears on her head. Posters of kittens were all around her.

"WHAT... are you doing?!" Helga muttered out out. Lila's jaw dropped as she heard the voice of her observer. She whipped the cat-ears off her head and hid them behind her back.

"Nothing!" the girl fibbed and tried to act demure.

"Woah, woah, woah! Hold on Mary Jane!" Helga grinned as she walked up to the window and hooked her hands on the windowsill. "Let me have a try!"

"Oh, well…" said Lila with only a tiny bit of hesitation. "I have another pair!" She held up a second pair of cat-ears.

So in a short space of time, it was both Helga and Lila rocking to a dance in Hillwood while wearing cat-ears on their heads. But their music halted to a screeching stop when Sheena peered into the window.

"What are you guys doing?" the girl asked politely in her small voice. Helga shrugged.

"What the hey, sure yeah! Join us!" Smiling, Sheena joined them in Lila's room. Her exceptionally long hair swayed as she danced. But as the three girls undulated to a radio song, they heard another disapproving voice.

"What are you guys doing?" Rhonda Lloyd sniffed as she held up a lost cat poster for Helga to see. Stinky and Sid stood on either side of her. Stinky Peterson compared the "transmogrified girl!" poster to the three girls standing in front of him. None of them were cats, but they all had cat-ears.

"Gawsh!" Stinky Peterson said with fascination. "It's an epidemic!" Sid gasped, then hid behind Stinky's back.

"It's a were-cat curse! Oh no! Stay away from me! I'm too young to be litterbox trained!"

"Relax, Sid!" Rhonda snapped as she snatched a couple of flyers from Sid's fist. "I told you Phoebe must have been mistaken! There is no way anyone could just RANDOMLY turn into a cat! But Helga, Phoebe is looking all over the city for you! You'd better go find her to tell her you're not really a cat!" Rhonda rolled her eyes backwards.

"Well, gosh, I guess I'd like to come along to help! That is if it's alright with you!" Lila uttered with grace. "I feel ever so sorry for Phoebe! Just ever so much!"

"Me too!" Sheena offered as she leaned out the window.

But at that current moment in time, Gerald had made good on his plan to make a trap. A net was lifted high over the stack full of lovely things. Phoebe had joined the two boys at their stake out. She clenched her two tiny hands together as if in prayer as all three kids peeked through holes in a wooden fence. They tensed as the yellow kitten stepped gracefully into the alley. It swished its tail.

"Keep your fingers crossed Gerald!" Arnold whispered as the mischievous cat approached. "I think this is gonna work!"

"I've already crossed my fingers!" Gerald complained softly. "And I can't cross them anymore! I'm all out of fingers!"

Phoebe, Gerald, and Arnold all pressed their eyes to peepholes again. The kitten turned, but not in the direction of the bait. "Meow!" the kitten wailed. It darted up over the fence to crouch at Phoebe's ankles. Phoebe hesitated to pick it up and in another moment, the cat hurdled itself over another fence. There was the sound of dogs barking beyond the fence and in the next moment, the yellow cat came hurdling back with its fur all puffed up with fright. Phoebe didn't hesitate this time to pluck the cat up and cuddle it in her arms.

"Oh, Helga!" Phoebe exclaimed with joy. She sneezed. Loudly.

"I'm going to take you home with me and take care of you and never let you get in harms way again!" Phoebe sobbed with compassion. "Achooo!" Arnold eyed the cat.

"You aren't really Helga are you?" the boy wondered. He tipped his head and squinted. "Nah!" he decided at last. "Couldn't be!"

"But there is some freaky sort of resemblance!" Gerald complained. A very annoyed yellow kitten with a pink bow swiped at him with one paw.

"Of course that furball's not me!" Helga said speaking to Gerald's back as her shadow fell on him, Phoebe, and Arnold. Helga held Phoebe's wanted poster up high in her hand for all to see. "Are you kidding me, Phoebe? Something must have broken in that overworked brain of yours. There's no way I could have turned into a cat! What were you thinking? You could have tried my cellphone, you know!"

"Oh!" Phoebe flustered. Her eyes flittered backwards as she thought back on all that had transpired. "I had replicated this magic potion recipe that I had found and I thought since you had eaten some of it in my kitchen, that the unspeakable had occurred and that it had worked! I'm sorry, Helga," Phoebe mumbled a little embarrassed. "I guess it was a little silly of me."

"Potion, what potion?" Helga pondered. She thought. "Oh! That jam! Yeah, about that peanut butter spread, Phoebe, it's gone bad or something! Smells like fish!"

"Because it is fish," Phoebe explained courteously. "Sardine-oil actually, plus dietary fiber supplement, and a generous sprig of catmint. I was trying to emulate a recipe I found!"

"A recipe!" Lila Sawyer said, segmenting herself into the conversation. "It does sound like a recipe all right! But if my memory serves correctly, it isn't a potion for turning people into a cats! It's a medicine to help cats cough up hairballs."

"Hairballs?" Helga asked with jaunted hip. Helga gave a little minor cough. She swished her eyes back and forth to see if anyone had noticed her hack.

"Well… yes," Lila expounded to them. "We had ever so many animals out in the country! Actually, as a matter of fact, my father was just saying that maybe we could adopt a cat! Or an extra-adorable kitten!" Lila said. Her eyes twinkled as she she clasped her hands together with longing.

"Oh!" Phoebe uttered. She looked down at the yellow kitten in her arms. "Then what do I do with this one? I'd promised to take care of it and…" Phoebe sneezed loudly. Lila Sawyer stepped forward. Bold, she snatched the kitten free of Phoebe's arms to tuck it into her own. The kitten looked up to Lila and purred.

"Oh, don't worry!" Lila spoke soothingly to Phoebe. "I'll look for the cat's owner and if we can't find one, then it can stay with me and be my extra-lovely, little, furry friend! My father and I were speaking of adopting anyway. Don't worry, I'll take good care of it!"

"Oh… thanks," Phoebe mumbled out a little sorry to part company with the cat she had grown fond of. But then Phoebe sneezed again. Because she had allergies, it really was better for her that Lila was taking the cat home instead of herself.

"Well, let me know how it goes! Okay?" Phoebe pleaded. She held both of the yellow kitten's tiny paws in her hands in one last goodbye. Lila Sawyer about-faced to take the cat to her home as she had promised. Phoebe and Helga watched the kitten go.

"Hm, Helga," Phoebe wondered out loud as she thought some more on the day's events. "Are you really alright?"

"Never better!" Helga declared. But she made another slight gacking sound behind her hand. "So… Phoebe?" Helga asked curling a hand behind her friend's back. Wanna go to the movies?"

"Sure!" Phoebe said with a soft smile. She was glad she had been reunited with her friend and that Helga was safe and unharmed. So they went to a movie about were-cats. It was a fun movie to watch even if a few of the moviegoers were oddly dressed or had even brought cats along with them. The end.


End file.
